Dependency
by Gitana del Sol
Summary: written for the Quidditch League challenge, round 4, in which Padma Patil debates just how far loyalty and friendship extends. Score: 10/10


**This was written for round 4 of the Quidditch League Challenge. I was given a pairing, which happened to be Padma Patil and Michael Corner (Ravenclaws again!). This time ****I only chose two optional prompts: **"addiction", "weekdays"

**This was inspired by Mackelmore's song "Neon Cathedrals"**

**Word Count: 1,116**

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She lets herself in, as she has done every Saturday morning for the past nine months. The small apartment is filthy. The overwhelming smell of alcohol, piss, and vomit hits her like a wall, making her eyes tear as she lets the door close behind her with a soft _click_. A cigarette butt glows in the ashtray, not completely put out, the dark smoke spiraling upward and making the small room stuffier than it already is. From where she stands, she can see that the garbage is overflowing and emitting a rancid smell; it probably had not been emptied since her last visit seven days ago. Encircling it like a fairy ring are empty bottles: vodka, wine, beer, scotch, and fire whiskey. These are his coworkers, his companions for the workweek. It had clearly been a bad week.

In the center of it all is Michael Corner, draped over his couch, grey from cigarette ash and spilled alcohol and who knew what else. His head rests on the armrest, peering up at her from deep, emotionless eyes. His hair is long and dirty, falling across his forehead and into his eyes. He is too hammered to do much more than gaze up at her forlornly. His shame is easy to read and when she makes to approach he cringes, as if anticipating punishment. He seems to have worn the same uniform all week, the shirt wrinkled and disheveled, the grey sweatpants hanging loosely about his frame. The five o'clock shadow framing the curvature of his chin is perhaps five days old. This is how she finds him almost every morning, beaten and battered and bruised. He used to fight it; it used to be that she would come to his little apartment to find him clean, fed, clear-eyed and alert. But somewhere along the line, he misplaced his will to fight. The weekdays outnumber the weekends five to two.

Padma feels a familiar flare of frustration but immediately stifles it, feeling guilty. He didn't choose this life, she tells herself; he was sick and needed help, not condemnation, she chides herself. Yet as she sets about picking and cleaning up, she has a hard time keeping her thoughts positive. Why couldn't he just lay off of it, stay clean for one week, she wonders as she picks the discarded butts with her fingers. He wasn't even trying, she thinks angrily as empties the ash tray. No one would blame her, she reassures herself, grabbing the empty bottle and stuffing them into the straining garbage bag, no one would think less of her. She passes her wand over a patch of vomit caked onto the carpet with barely contained disgust, consenting that Michael himself had already given up. She moves about the apartment, cleaning and purging it of the distress, imagining the time she could be sharing with her husband and child instead of cleaning up after a hopeless cause.

But then she turns to him and she doesn't see a lazy, pitiful excuse for a man; she sees Michael, young Michael Corner, and all of a sudden he's fifteen, worrying about the O.W.L's, and she's sixteen, proud of the Prefect badge gleaming on her chest. She had looked out for the younger Ravenclaws long before she was awarded that badge; she had guided and advised acquaintances and friends long before she stepped into Hogwarts. Old habits die hard, especially those innate tendencies that had been nurtured and groomed for so long. So she releases a heavy sigh from her lips before bending to coax him off the couch. She guides him to the bathroom, stripping him down before helping him into the shower. Michael flushes and attempts for some modesty even in his intoxicated state but after a child and all her Healer work at St. Mungo's, there isn't much that can make her blush. She sees to it that he is freshened up and redressed in clean clothes. A swish of her wand and the odd tomato, ginger, and onion she finds in his pantry turns into a warm bowl of creamy tomato soup. She watches him eat it, notes how his eyelids are drooping and how difficult it is for him to hold the spoon steady. He slurps the last of the warm liquid, and when she hands him the tonic for the hangover, he takes it without fuss. Then he is brushing his teeth and crawling into bed, compliant as ever, so all Padma has to do it tuck in the covers and turn off the lights. The two hours are up.

Padma makes her way across the apartment and out the door, quietly closing the door behind her. After double-checking that it is locked, she allows herself to lean against the wall, breathing in deep gulps of fresh air. Feebly, she wonders once more while she continues to see after Michael, even after his refusal to go into St. Mungo's for treatment and counseling. Then the memories come back to her, like a tidal wave, humbling her. She bows her head and closes her eyes, remembering how her father, Sonjay Patil, had drowned his sorrows in fire whiskey. He had gone to retrieve his family during the height of the war only to find that they had been murdered. No more than cold corpses breeding families of maggots with their still hearts. He had desperately tried finding salvation and forgiveness at the bottom of those heart-shaped bottles. He had missed work; he had ignored his daughters; he had beaten his wife. Within weeks he had transformed from a jovial man to a tortured soul, haunted by his self-induced guilt. Though he hit and yelled and raged, causing her all manner of pain, Neera Patil did not leave his side.

"Sometimes, flower," Neera Patil had told her, "men lose their way. They would like us to believe that they are always strong and brave but every once in a while, they are very small and meek. This is when it falls upon the woman to bear him, and carry him until he is strong again – to help him find the path once more. That is why man needs woman."

Finally, she opens her eyes and walks out of the building where she will be able to Disapparate. She knows that Monday will see the start of a fresh wave of shame, a symptom that can only be tolerated in an intoxicated state. The weekdays will bring on the horrors anew, and there is nothing she can do about it. All she can hope for is to show him that alcohol is not the only ammunition to use against the bitter ailments of war.

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**AN: I don't think this is one of my better works. In fact, now that I have finally finished it, I really have no love for it. It's like a poor unwanted child. Ah well. Either way, let me know what you think - you can still be honest but just know that I won't be rushing to edit.**


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